A Simple Guide to the Universe
by cagd
Summary: Sylvia discovers some of the truth behind the Watchdogs, and that junk DNA, isn't as junky as thought.
1. Pointless Interruption: In the Beginning

_…once upon a time… no, no, that's not quite it._

_…twice upon a time?_

_Not that, either…. Ah!_

_Thrice upon a time, there was a species of highly territorial social apes, who, tiring of their nursery, fled their cradle, dispersing randomly into the space that surrounded them._

_Among the first of those groups of highly social but territorial apes to venture forth into new territory, were a group that bought the rights to a new homeworld, as described in a brochure._

_In other words, a pig in a poke. (For those of you who don't know, a pig is an animal roughly the size of a matter transporter and is purple. As to what a "poke" is, researchers have yet to figure that out. It is either some sort of plant that is now extinct, or an obscure house pet.)_

_Believing they had gained a large and valuable new homeworld rich in marketable natural resources, they were horrified to discover that what they had paid for unseen, was an asteroid, a chunk of extinct cosmic sponge barely large enough to hold on to a very thin atmosphere, with daytime temperatures of 100°F regularly plummeting to an average of -40°F at night._

_It was also very foggy._

_Making the already distant sun the asteroid circled around, a White Dwarf, appear as little more than a flat, white speck overhead._

_Having paid their fare with very little left over, this particular tribe of highly territorial apes had no choice but to make the best of it even as other, much luckier groups of highly territorial apes shot past them and their little real estate mistake towards richer pastures such as Zbornia._

_Consequentially, the new owners of AerIn #13 died by the hundreds even as they were the first territorial apes to learn that what their shamans called "junk" DNA, wasn't so junky after all."_

—("Fodor's Spotter's Guide to the Planets, 16647th ed".)


	2. Chapter 1: Bulk Purchase

The residents of Townville, newly rebuilt after the latest depredation of Lord Dominator, took a collective sigh of relief and relaxed beneath the bright morning sun.

Or they would have had a giant metal skull not just dropped from the sky.

The gleaming starship in a novelty shape, gaped.

The residents of Townville found this highly unsettling.

A gigantic red tongue rolled out like a threatening red carpet.

This did not add to their mental health, either.

The seemingly endless ranks of long-legged one-eyed little creatures who marched down the lolling tongue immediately escalated the communal anxiety attack.

Great. First Lord Dominator last week, and now Lord Hater and his Watchdogs … time to yeet!

Forgetting what she was about to say to Wander her traveling companion, Sylvia dropped her ultra-black coffee and slice of jellyfish pie onto the boardwalk with a loud "splat!" and stampeded against the flow of the fleeing citizenry towards the jackbooted little intruders with lightning bolts jutting upwards from their black helmets.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Sylvia grinned, tail twitching and Lady Haymaker and the Duchess raised as she waded through the fleeing Townvillians: nothing ever changed, and that was exactly how she liked it. With a grunt, she slammed a muscular dark brown fist straight into the single red eye of a watchdog while solidly mule-kicking the one who'd come up behind her with one large three-toed foot.

There was an amplified electronic squeal. Ears ringing, Sylvia looked up mid-trample. "Well, well, well, if it isn't good ol' Commander Peepers in charge of the show – and this time he remembered to bring a stepladder!"

The stepladder had been painted yellow and black, as had the megaphone he was staring down into the bell of, looking for the source of the undignified screech.

Sylvia leaned back into her broad based tail and punted two watchdogs at the same time; she could feel Peeper's fussy outrage at her interference with his orderly invasion plan all the way from where he teetered atop the rickety wooden structure. Fussy-fussy-fussy Peepers, forever bristling because his boss, Lord Hater, never did things the way he'd planned so that the latest house of cards he'd oh-so-carefully built blew away.

Sylvia whirled a howling watchdog by its ankles around her like a scythe, heyyyyyy… the grotty little orgortknob'd definitely bulked up since they'd first met six months ago, going from noodly pipsqueak to something that could almost, ALMOST take her.

"Heh. _Take that!"_ She grinned, displaying large, square teeth all the way to the back of her mouth while releasing the watchdog's ankles so that he cartwheeled howling into the ranks coming up behind him. "Who's next?" she bellowed at the oncoming ranks.

(It had been fun teaming up against the badder bad guy when all the villains took on bratty Lord Dominator and kicked her off the celestial playground so that Lord Dominator ended up running as fast as her skinny legs would carry her all the way back to daddy in a trail of melty mascara – but the aftermath had been boring. Thanks, Peepers!)

Sylvia felt something pounding on her leg and looked down into a huge, red eye. She squinted, funny how it looked almost like plastic in the early morning sun. Each watchdog had one for a head, with one red iris in the middle of the shining white sclera, revealing little beyond a cold calculating stare topped by a black helmet decorated with a brass lightning bolt while shrill little Peepers, shorter than the rest and now shaking a nesting birb out of his megaphone while dancing with rage, stepladder rocking dangerously back and forth, had the biggest, most ornate lightning bolt of all.

Thud, another watchdog went flying from the end of her tail. Hater's little army of creeps wasn't all that dangerous: their reactions were slow and their aim bad. Keep them from ganging up and pulling you down _en masse_, and all their bluster was just noise.

Sylvia felt herself abruptly tipping sideways as a mass of small red-gloved hands snagged her clothing. "Oh flarp!" she exclaimed as she landed face down on the freshly laid cobblestones of the reborn planet, "Should'a paid attention!"

"See Tim?" someone squealed as they piled on top of her, "I told you so! Peepers is just full of hot fewmits!"

"Get offa me! Wander, a little help here?" Heaving herself upright from under the writhing mass of tiny assailants, Sylvia, violet eyes searching for her little friend's perpetually shedding orange sweater tried not to freak. "Wander always finds the WORST times to tie random people's shoelaces together… don't panic, don't panic!" Only this time she didn't see anybody tripping for no reason even as the massed watchdogs pulled her back down.

Where the flarp-nuggets WAS he?

Oh no, not THAT! "Wander, put him back, he's not yours!" Sylvia yelled, followed by a loud "Ooooof!" as the swarming watchdogs surged over her.

Flailing, Sylvia rose, attempting to peel off one of the more persistent tiny soldiers while wading through the sea of pointy helmets towards where Wander happily loved on the obviously disgusted Lord Hater in a cloud of loose, moth-eaten wool, but the watchdog's small red gloved hand only dug deeper into her battle-scarred shoulder. Another watchdog clamped onto her muscular brown leg. She kicked him off without breaking stride as she slammed Lady Haymaker into the eye of the one clamped to her shoulder, red-gloved hands tearing viciously at her hot pink dreads with a loud crack.

Everyone stopped, single eyes staring up at her and at what she'd just done.

In the sudden, slow silence she heard a pop, followed by a hiss, and then a choking gasp as the teeny warrior fell over backwards clawing at his turtle-neck sweatered throat before landing convulsing at her feet, face red going purple.

"Steve! NO!" Her other attacker let go of her leg unnoticed as Sylvia gaped open-mouthed down at the body.

Was that a face with two eyes under that… that… single cyclopean eye?

"Steve! Steve! Can you hear me? Hang in there… MEDIC!"

The watchdog that had clung to her shoulder quickly knelt, and pushed a hidden catch on the side of what was now obviously a hard plastic faceplate with a sensory array embedded in it so that it quickly slammed back down over "Steve's" now blackish face and shockingly red hair before heaving the twitching, wheezing tiny casualty like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder.

Sylvia was so shocked at what she'd just seen that fact that Steve's rescuer clumsily whirled and fired, singing her favorite dreadlock (the one with the little gold ornament on the end that her dad'd given her before the accident that changed everything) barely registered until Peepers grabbed her arm from behind and spun her around to face him

"That wasn't fair!" Peepers squawked up at her oval face, blaster poking into the soft flesh under her chin like a cold, red finger as Steve's rescuer staggered awkwardly towards the small red black and yellow ambulance parked on the edge of the brawl squealing, "Man down! Man down!"

Confused, Sylvia scowled down at Peepers and his gaudy blaster, "And what the fleepknob 'r you doin' here?" She grabbed his tiny throat. "I thought you were too busy falling off a stepladder to notice what was going on!" Ignoring the possibility of sudden, hot death at close range, she squeezed his thin neck

"Get away from me, you fuzzy freak, I'm allergic!" Startled, Sylvia dropped Commander Peepers. Both spun and looked up at Hater's starship, the face behind the open helmet temporarily forgotten. Wander was once again trying to make friends with Lord Hater, who was not having any of it.

"Never changes." The pair muttered in unconscious unison as the idiots that they'd been hired to babysit by a Universe with a sick sense of humor wrestled in a garish haze of orange fuzz.


	3. Chapter 2: Big Box

"Oh Syyyylviaaaaa, HI!" Wander sang as he pried himself loose from the angry grip of the translucently-skinned skeletal man who was completely unaware that he was wearing cheap rubber dish gloves.

"What, Wander, you…" Sylvia blinked. She gave out a snorting laugh, "Peepers, are those what I think…?"

"I order them in bulk from Sam's Groceryworld every six months. He chews his nails. Cheaper that way plus I get a quantity discount when I buy the extra small red ones in lots of one hundred at the same time." Peepers muttered up at Sylvia. He gave a raspy sounding cough before muttering, "Plus they're electricity proof."

"I know the feeling." Sylvia muttered back, trying hard not to sympathize. "Whenever they have a coupon I get their bulk lint rollers." while mentally saying to herself, "Don't let your guard down over a pair of cheap dish gloves from a big box planet. He's the bad guy. Remember, arglbrottt?

"Anyway, back to business, _Commander CHEAPers."_ She hissed down at her enemy.

Grinning because she saw him flinch ever-so-slightly, Sylvia triumphantly leaned into what she now knew was a plastic shell. Peepers, bulk purchasing options and quantity discounts abruptly forgotten, leaned into her attack so that the two now scuffled back and forth—"RETREAT!"

Startled, the two antagonists snapped out of their standoff.

Forehead-to-forehead. the two antagonists turned their heads in tandem,watching as once again Lord Hater screamed, "RETREAT!" while still fending off the squirming mass of ginger curls and shopworn sweater topped by an equally disreputable green hat that was Wander.

Sylvia sniggered. Watching Hater trying to hold onto the gleefully squirming mass of orange curls and giggles from his slippery perch on the red tongue which now dangled limply from the jaws of his evil starship was better than eating a whole jellyfish pie.

Washed down with an ENTIRE pot of extra black coffee.


	4. Chapter 3: Bimbo

"I took my eyes off of Wander for just. ONE. Lousy. SECOND!" Sylvia moaned internally as Emperor Awesome flexed one all too obviously spray-tanned bicep at her and the other garishly dressed party girls surrounding her in a mass of big hair and even bigger boo—_ (AHEM, ratings people, ratings!)._

"I deserve every last neon droobly ball and designer rainbow bandanna this froblenick flares at me!" Sylvia continued, squirming uncomfortably in one of the phun phuzz covered seats of Emperor Awesome's evil but vulgar starship, "Gropnabbit, Hater has Wander for real this time!"

(And of course Wander had the hat!)

But she had the wallet.

Sylvia felt the slight lurch as the tiger-striped epitome of cool bad taste she'd hitched a ride on ducked into hyperspace. If she'd guestimated right, they should be about an hour away by now.

"Flarp!" Huge gold hoop earrings swinging, she tugged at her too-tight, too short skirt for the fifth time, Emperor Awesome didn't even notice her struggling, cussing self, being too busy looking at himself in the nearest shiny surface, of which there were _quite_ a lot. Sylvia scowled as her too-small skirt instantly crept back up to near trip to the gynecologist level the second she released it, with nothing to do but think some more.

Think. Think. Think.

No orbble, no hat, nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zEEEEEE-roooooooo.

Just a belt whip and the clothes on her back.

Get a job? No time for that! (Anyway, space tickets were very expensive, and Wander would be dead by the time she'd earned enough for even steerage.)

So she'd been forced to hitchhike, and to make sure somebody, anybody stopped, she'd dug down to the bottom of the wallet and pulled out a now embarrassing outfit left over from her bounty hunting days.

So of course dressed like that, who was the only one to stop?

Emperor Awesome and his cooing coterie of admiring... Sylvia had a foul mouth, but she couldn't quite bring herself to say what was on her mind.

Still, any limo in a storm. Head aching, she once more closed her eyes in exasperation as "ARE YOU READY TO PAR-TAAAAAY?!" boomed through the close quarters of the tricked out trust fund baby's toy.

Sylvia coughed, waving away the latest assault of knockoff designer fragrance the bimbo sitting next to her applied for the third time in the last thirty minutes.

Why did evil have to be so darned… TACKY?


	5. Pointless Interruption: Junk DNA

_One of the many reasons why the poor stay poor, is they simply have nothing anybody wants. Nothing personal, have nothing? Be nothing._

_And AerIn #13 is poor._

_Dirt poor._

_Or it would be if it'd had any dirt._

_Which means that agricultural wealth was completely out of the equation._

_(Editor's note: It seems that humans aren't the only ones with "junk" DNA.)_

_The first of the introduced domestic animals to change were the cows._

_Within a generation or two, in addition to shrinking to half size, they gained in intelligence and aggression, giving the traditional name of "Bossy" an entirely new meaning._

_With their newly gained sentience, they set up a Union._

_Which was better than anything the humans could come up with as a countermeasure._

_Horses shrank and regained their toes, while the fangs that had been bred out of them for generations reappeared as their mouths widened so that they resembled wolves more than something that would docily pull a plow or a cart._

_They too, had a better Union._

_As for sheep, what they didn't gain in sentience, they lost in size, shrinking to the proportions of a household dustmop (Editor's note: Whatever that is.)_

_With the personality and the teeth of a piranha. (Editor's note: Again, whatever that is.)_

_They still flocked together, and during the intense heat of the day, these golden-fleeced terrors were known to roam the endless caves and natural bridges of AerIn #13 in search of easy prey._

_If they found any, the scoured bones left scattered on the close-cropped lichens and mosses of the long-dead sponge that supported them, didn't bear closer examination even as the job of shepherd now required a crook armed with a high voltage taser and a belt of home-made grenades._

_And the ability to run._

_Fast._

_Cats and dogs were non-existent. They had been the first to change, took one look at the situation, said, "NOPE!" and using what little wealth that was left to the new colony, emigrated on the first craft that passed through their system to someplace better, taking the rats with them._

_The mice would have joined them, but the sheep got to them first._

_As for geese, ducks, chickens and other introduced avians, they reverted to something vaguely resembling a velociraptor, another extinct creature resembling a glorgernax, only without the extra pair of back legs and third eye._

_And they tasted terrible. (Editor's note: That's a matter of opinion.)_

_On the other hand, the humans changed along with them, becoming once again the apex predator, and they didn't mind the taste at all._

_—Excerpted from "A Brief History of Sector #234 and Its People", unpublished travel memoir by Lady Arbutnott Arbitrary-Hater CMXCIX_


	6. Chapter 4: Poor Little Rich Kid

Peepers's da was the stationmaster for AerIn #13's only spaceport.

He was also the chief and only constable for what for lack of a better word was called a village that the spaceport stood beside.

The village consisted of a one room school house, three private residences including the spongy cave that Peepers had been born in fifteen standard years before, one of five shops that existed on AerIn #13 that also doubled as a law office, the rarely used post office, and the constable's office which also did time as the stationmaster's office when it wasn't being used to store the cow's Union records or as a one bedroom hotel.

Occasionally Peeper's father acted as public notary, mortician, postmaster, and/or Justice of the Peace. (Peeper's mam was the part time schoolmistress, or had been until her students ate her during end of the year finals. So far, nobody had volunteered to replace her, which was a shame because the job included a really good dental plan. Did I mention that Peeper's da was also the village dentist, podiatrist and G.P.?)

The only reason Peeper's da didn't have the job of village priest was that long ago the occupants of AerIn #13 had taken one look at what reading a brochure had gotten them and collectively decided that any deity that would let them down that badly, didn't deserve any acknowledgement much less a priest because that would be enabling.

Anyway, candles are expensive!

One day, upon finding his da's clean picked bones on the lichen, Peepers, shortest and smallest scion of a long line of short people, would inherit it all.

Goody.

Though his inheritance would make him the second richest being on AerIn #13, right behind the family cow (who's contract was due to expire soon), Peepers viewed this bright future with all the enthusiasm of having his appendix removed with a blunt butter knife and no anesthesia.

Gifted with a rare fourth grade education, (Education on AerIn #13 generally ended at the third grade because who needs to know geography, slightly higher mathematics, and how to spell words of more than two syllables when you're generally too busy fending off the sheep and other livestock? As for geography, one patch of lichen encrusted petrified sponge looks pretty much like another unless somebody's clean picked bones are strewn upon it waiting to be identified and claimed by their family only to be used to repair holes in roof of the family cave?)

Problem was, despite the promise of inherited wealth and local power, the bored and discontented Peepers had gained a slightly different perspective from his fellows when he was in the second grade. One morning for the first time in years, a spacecraft landed on the lichen covered spaceport landing field. The gleaming starcraft was quickly surrounded by all twenty human(ish) citizens of the surrounding village as well as the cows, the cow's Union rep (the horses were too busy electing a new leader to bother), a few examples of homicidal poultry, and Peepers, who was on sheep duty that day, keeping the displaced and therefore hungry sheep, at bay with his taser loaded crook.

It seems the pilot was lost, had no idea where she was, thought the place smelled terrible, and did they have a map?

No? You don't?

Can you at least give me directions?

Staring at the first stranger they'd seen EVER, the villagers helpfully pointed in all directions until the stranger snarled petulantly through her breathing mask, "Never mind, I'll keep going until I recognize something. You grobblotches are about as useful as tits on a wwetw'th!" and rapidly departed, screaming, "You stink!"

Having had enough excitement for the century, the villagers, sentient livestock, homicidal sheep, labor officials, and eternally hostile poultry dispersed, leaving Peepers to poke about the landing site with his deadly crook (All the while keeping an eye on the sheep. Sheep were untrustworthy.)

What he found among the scorched clumps of lichens was a flat boxy thing with what he later on learned was a screen.

And it was... _wonderful._

It spoke, telling him nonstop in many voices while showing him that there was something besides lichen, extreme temperatures, and dinner tried to eat you back.

It told him of worlds where the livestock didn't tell you what to do.

It told him of marvelous things to own, to see, and do – none of it involving chasing dinner down and eating it raw on the spot while fending off your brothers and sisters.

Of broad horizons and golden suns.

And oceans. Lots of oceans.

And Peepers believed. He believed it all.

So few years later, even if he was the smallest of the small, Peepers knew exactly what to do when Lord Hater's skull-shaped starcraft landed sideways in his father's spaceport,

He enlisted.

(Too bad several hundred of his fellow AerLish, (never the most original of folk), followed his example.)

Which was why a highly irritated Commander Peepers now found himself in the hospital bay he'd built from scratch using used parts visiting his sixteenth cousin Steve instead of tasing homicidal sheep on his father's landing field.

Judging by his pale bluish color, cousin Steve would recover from oxygen poisoning and be ready to fight in a day or two. Still, having racial secrets released was a problem, even if it had only been Sylvia who'd seen what was behind the faceplate of the helmets all AerIsh had to wear offworld. The Zbornak wasn't exactly the brightest weeeconk in the purlsch, but still… worry-worry-worry, and because Hater had captured Wander (or was it the other way around?) Wander's partner would be coming any time now to rescue the little ginger pest… which… which…

…made Peepers...

_Nervous._

Still, he needed to make sure there would be a loose hatch or two available, not to mention the loosening of certain grates…

Peepers liked his security tight, but it never hurt to leave a chink or two in the armor that was Hater's starship. A wee lad had to keep himself on his toes: that's how the wee survive. Copy the bigger fish, and keep things challenging.

Not to mention Peepers was always a tad disappointed whenever a day went by without a fight with the thicc girl with her low center of gravity, big feet, and short powerful arms – and a broad-based tail she used like a third leg to brace herself in a fight!

(Careful Peepers, you don't want to sound like you admire her in any way. She is, after all, the _enemy_.)

Still, it was nice to fight a near equal.

Any time now.

Any time.


	7. Pointless Interruption: Memos

"…as per the model, profits steadily dropping… original ore supply and tailings exhausted… operating in the red… abandon operations on Zbornakia… salvage what equipment that can be salvaged… auction off remainder of assets… open new mines on… increase stockholder profits… decrease pensions.

—Confidential Hyperspace Interoffice memo from Awesome-Hater Mining Inc., LLC, STFU

"…once the DNA previously referred to as "junk" revealed its true function, to help a terrestrial organism gain true efficiency in a new environment within two generations (or less), the entire legal definition of "human" had to change. Anything ranging from the now more or less extirpated "featherless biped" that stands upright, comes in a range of basic epidermal colors and has at birth ten fingers and ten toes to something that more or less resembles the legendary terrestrial "kangaroo" minus the marsupial pouch, as long as it contains DNA which can be directly traced to the now extinct _Homo Sapiens_, is now legally considered human.

The fact that the featherless biped and the humanoid kangaroo can and will interbreed and produce fertile, sentient offspring, complicated matters until a simple pocket blood test was developed in order to keep track of who was what.

—Derwent's _What the Hell is That? A Spotter's Guide to Humans_, 95 ed.


	8. Chapter 5: Plaid

_The night tall, fine Sylvia Henry turned nine, John Henry, her pop, took her high atop the boulder that was the roof of the house that the Company provided them with because her pop, John Henry, worked as a miner for the company, put her on one broad shoulder and spreading his short, powerful arms wide enough to take in the whole star-spangled sky above them, said, "Happy birthday, babe'girl - keep studyin' the way you be doin', babe'girl," and he gestured at the rocky land below with its barren strip pits, excavators, and endless ranks of ore crushers, "And some day you will leave all ah this be-HIN' an' make me PROUD!"_

_Sylvia, who took after her pop in that she had skin so brown it looked black and his wild hot-pink hair, thought it was wonderful for him to say that because he was a miner, which made her a miner's daughter, and miner's daughters were expected to drop out of school before the 8th grade, get them a man, and have lots of kids, NOT stay and study and go out into the rest of the big, wide, limitless galaxy and SEE what she'd been told about for herself._

_One morning when Sylvia Henry was fourteen, the ground shook beneath her school desk as the sirens went off all around while she was working on a map of the stars._

_Another cave-in._

_There'd been a lot of those lately as the Company, pushing to gouge every last single bit of salable ore from the planet they were raping even as that ore ran out after five hundred steady years, dug deeper, harder and faster chasing dwindling profits._

_The principal came and pulled Sylvia out of the class before the sirens dwindled into silence._

_Two weeks later, after the funeral and the first pitifully small settlement voucher arrived in the mail, Sylvia Henry, daughter of John Henry, the biggest, blackest and best miner the Company had, found herself washing dishes and waiting tables at the Company-owned Joe's Diner so that her three brothers could stay in high school and her mother and grandmother didn't have to move out of the boulder roofed Company provided house, all dreams of ever getting offworld, abandoned._

"Sorry, pop, didn't mean to disappoint you."

Sylvia sniffed, one dark leg crossed over the other, large three-fingered hands automatically yanking down the garish plaid skirt that kept creeping up her thighs, a leftover from her late teen years when she'd finally had enough of the grabtailery of Joe's customers, and poured a pot of hot coffee onto the crotch of the biggest grabtail there.

Followed by her years with Ryder.

Ugh, what a ratchet playah – how could she have been so STUPID?

Speaking of stupidity and ratchet playahs, Emperor Awesome was giving her and some blonde floozy with a pneumatic frontage a free gunshow. Blondie Boobs seemed to enjoy it.

Sylvia fought not to roll her eyes; she'd promised herself no more selling herself short after Ryder, who'd offered her a job even as grabtail howled, clutching himself while tipping over the table at the same time in a cascade of hot coffee – "Y'got spirit girl. How's about workin' for me?"

John Henry's smart lil' gal'd been so desperate, she'd accepted Ryder's offer without even bothering to ask exactly what the job he was offering WAS as long as it was offworld.

"What? Don't touch m—" Sylvia caught herself, cooing, "Oooooh Babyboy, tell us more about your red-hot muscles and ultra rad invasion plans!"

Emperor A(sshole)wesome draped one carefully sculpted arm over Sylvia's shoulders, breath reeking of fish, beer, and tobacco.

Sylvia closed her eyes. Showing leg convinced Emperor A(sshole) to stop his stretch space limo long enough to pick her up - he was planning an invasion and needed all the party girls he could get for his initial strike to party the place into submission. It took Sylvia every last atom of herself to not deck him and walk off into open space and leave all of this, including Wander, behind.

But Sylvia owed Wander, and she really, REALLY wanted a go at Peepers – feeling Lady Haymaker followed by The Duchess solidly connect with the stodgy little flartibart's body would more than make up for this rootbartglish.

Sooooooo, she'd put up with being part of Emperor Fishbreath's adoring entourage of party hearty ding-a-lings because any second now he'd pass Lord Hater's shiny rich kid's toy close enough for her to safely jump ship.

The blonde, little more than a huge pair of glossy lips to go with the huge pair, brayed, playfully shoving at Awesome, jostling Sylvia, who turned her face away and scowled unseen.

No. Just _no._

"Hey!" Sylvia yelled as the blonde in her too-tight micro dress scrambled over her to open the sun roof to wave squealing at the rapidly approaching Skullship, butt square in Sylvia's face.

Sylvia gagged – hotlips had been eating pickled blob-a-robs nonstop– where'd the 'bot with the drinks tray got off too? She could really, REALLY use one about now.

And heyyyyyyyyy… Sylvia leaned around the fleshy obstruction, catching a glimpse of the Skullship. Its red eyes seemed to flare brighter at the female attention.

"Looks like I won't have to do a spacewalk when nobody's looking, the chauffer's signaling for landing…" she muttered, adding, "And while I sweat it out with Awesome, Wander's probably coaching a Watchdog dodgeball tournament."

(Orrrrr playing fetch with Captain Tim.)

_Shudder._

Yeah, yeah. All I gotta do is waltz in, grab Wander, and run for it.

The main bay of Lord Hater's evil starship began to gape

Body tensing as they came to a landing in the silver skull's mouth, Sylvia gulped as the chauffeur dressed in neon tiger print opened the door into the low light of Hater's ship, party music blaring from the expensive holographic sound system that made up most of Awesome's toy.

Sweating ever so slightly, Sylvia left the limo, discreetly tugging at her skirt. Emperor Awesome grabbed her around the waist, exclaiming, "Smile more, babe - maybe I'll take you more places, like Bertha here!"

Yeah, right!

Sylvia yanked a fake smile into position, any second now, any second…


	9. Chapter 6: Grumble Grumble

If there was anything Peepers hated more than his homeworld, it was meddling.

That, and boredom

Not long after sorting out the mess that was Lord Hater's skullship, Lord Hater's budget, and Lord Hater's mountain of bills, followed by conquering something larger than a small pebble – Peepers found that he was bored.

REALLY bored.

Until Wander, chaos personified in a cheap orange sweater and his sidekick, Sylvia, decided to meddle.

Wow, did those two ever meddle – always interrupting invasions that took Peepers MONTHS to plan, Lord Hater coloring outside the lines next to him grumbling sullen excuses until it was time to put down the yellow crayon, pick up the ceremonial ball point pen, and sign whatever orders Peepers put in front of him.

Not that Peepers exactly MINDED those two pests disrupting whatever conquests he'd bought the permits for 24-hours in advance plus liability, catering, and parking fees. Once Peepers filled out the right forms with receipts attached, a certain powerful idiot with waaaaayyyyyy too much money got a big ol' tax write off for every failed evil plan – which somehow bypassed Hater and went directly into the intergalactic bank account Peepers had set up behind his back.

Meddling aside, Sylvia and her fists reduced the boredom of micro-managing a rich, powerful idiot who ate his own toenails during meetings when he wasn't picking his nose and an army would just as soon eat each other as attack what they were supposed to attack.

And those two fists always managed to connect with Peeper's body so that after every encounter, he found himself going through ice pack after ice pack while filling out rebate forms for bulk cases of yellow rubber dishwashing gloves to settle his nerves:

Though grateful for alleviating his boredom, Peepers was tired of the big woman beating him senseless in front of his inferiors, including Lord Hater.

A practical man by any legal definition (He had the DNA to prove it!), Peepers changed his personal combat training routine. Being shorter than most of the universe, Peepers was used to biting the foot that kicked him so that the next time an extremely bored four-footer encountered a very dark-skinned chick with outrageous hair and her space hobo, somebody was gonna get bit.


	10. Chapter 7: Dirty Kitchen Sponge

"Ooooof!" Sylvia grunted, pulling herself forward on her elbows in the cramped space, adding, "Shouldn't have had that fourth piece of jellyfish pie." She sucked in, gave another forward pull on her elbows and suddenly shot forward when her hips and tail popped free from the narrow space in the duct somewhere in the bowels of Lord Hater's skullship.

Funny how in all the action vids where the hero or the heroine, or whatever it was infiltrated an enemy craft through the ductwork and all the ductwork was well lit, smelled nice, and above all, WIDE.

Lord Hater obviously hadn't got the memo. His ductwork was narrow, dark, and smelled like feet.

That, and Sylvia had the nasty feeling that she was somehow being led somewhere, because the only ducts she managed to slide though, the ones where the grates and filters easily popped loose, seemed to be leading her downward, ever downward so that the yells of "Get offa me, freak!" and "It never hurts to help!" echoed fainter and fainter behind her.

It was also suspicious that the sections of ductwork she could get into were, well, slippery.

As in greasy.

Really greasy.

Almost as if somebody had taken the time to coat the narrow bits with grease.

To make it easier for someone, someone thicc like Sylvia, who had big hips and a full figure, to slip through.

?

Nahhhhhhh, that would be too easy!

She paused, elbows burning from where they'd repeatedly scraped against the sides of the cramped space, ugh, was that a rat? Even Lord Hater didn't have enough scratch to afford a contract with rats – rats had a powerful union, they didn't add creepy atmosphere to any facility for less than 10K plus health care and dental.

She paused, still, there was what felt like a chomp mark in the dark, ewww, maybe a scab working freelance, risking being blown out of the nearest airlock by full union rats if caught.

Still, the cramped darkness, grease, chomp marks, and now REALLY bad smell, like armpits and unflushed toilets sure beat being part of Sharkboy's bimbo parade. She'd ditched the whole mascared mess the second Emperor Awesome's back was turned.

Into the only ladies room on the entire ship, that is.

Right across from (ugh!) Smooching Room #4.

Judging by the design of the ladies room, it was clear that Lord Hater had no real idea of what went on inside any ladies room. There were plenty of mirrors. There was fluffy pink wallpaper. There was even a perfume dispenser (right next to the automatic lipstick machine). There were even glowing roses in 19 designer colors.

Howeverrrrrrr…

There was no toilet.

Not a one.

Zip.

Zero.

Zilch.

There was a red velvet fainting couch, but not a potty.

There was a champagne dispenser.

Not so much as a throne.

The tinkler was nowhere to be found.

Which was a shame, because Sylvia REALLY had to pee.

She'd just have to hold it, she'd decided as she quickly changed out of the bimbo ensemble and back into her cargo shorts and halter. What's another three months or so? Anyway, the big grate where the toidy should have been all but fell into her hands when she examined it.

Slip in, slither unseen around the guts of the skullship until she heard Hater trying to shut up the insanely optimistic Wander, yank him into the ducts where even the runty Watchdogs couldn't follow her, and drag him out a bilge hatch and into her last orbble and run for it.

Only now Sylvia's simple plan didn't seem so simple now that she was actually carrying it out – how damned many miles of cramped, smelly, narrow ductwork did a rich kid's toy NEED?

And hey, was it her imagination, or was the metal of the duct she was in getting colder and the air thinner?

Still smelled bad, though, if not worse. Like a rotting kitchen sponge.

And the gravity felt off.

Lighter, somehow.


	11. Pointless Interruption: Corvee Labor

"…in all honesty, the people of AerLand #13 are some of the ugliest, most useless human variants in the known galaxy. Aside from an unusual sheep variant, there is nothing of interest whatsoever on Aerland #13, which has recently been placed beneath permanent quarantine."

—_Fodor's Guide to the Planets_, 1,000,000th ed.,

"…the uniquely repellent adaptations to their hostile environment has rendered the AerIsh of AerLand #13 quite fragile away from their home world. Were they to be moved _en masse_ to a less hostile environment and involuntarily put to work on our corporate megafarms, the sheer cost of survival equipment for the first two generations before their adaptive DNA manifests itself, would make such a venture a financial disaster. Therefore, I propose that we abandon the entire slave labor proposal in the name of fiscal responsibility."

—Ralph Hater XIII, President of MegaFarmz, Inc. final report on proposal to remove the entire population of AerLand #13 to work the fields of New Eden.

"The game of Super Villain is a rich kid's game and is only played by those who can sustain the long-term cost of maintaining a small private army as well as the equipment and supplies to go with it. Logistics are generally handled by skilled underlings. The more skilled the underlings, the faster the individual Super Villain moves up the ladder of success in this cosmic game of privileged "Capture the Flag". The main objective is to avoid damaging each captive world's infrastructure in order to pay for their own exploitation.

It is a simple, despicable game and should be illegal."

—Abbie Hoffperson XXXIIIV, Non-Binary Chairthing and Founder of the Committee to Halt the Game of Super Villains and other Exploitive Forms of Fun


	12. Chapter 8: Grease

Tracking Sylvia's clanking, grunting progress ever downwards through the bowels of Lord Hater's skullship on his internal opti-screen as he entered Watchdog territory, Commander Peepers couldn't help but smirk unseen beneath his sensory array and flared black helmet.

It was almost too easy – he'd spent a good five minutes loosening the bolts of the fake vent he'd had installed in the ladies room while Lord Hater and Emperor Awesome and his jiggly, giggly entourage packed themselves into Smooching Room #4 – a space that Peepers preferred to think of as "Conference Room #4".

Sure enough, Sylvia, almost unrecognizable in a mini-skirt and lip gloss, had slipped out during the aggressive posturing of the two Super Villains as they argued over who was cooler and who should attack the next target world first as part of their temporary alliance – and gone right into the ducts as if greased.

Well, they _were_, greased, that is.

Had Peepers such a thing as a "Wall of Honor" in his cramped personal quarters, the discarded plaid skirt he found on the fluffy pink linoleum of the ladies room, would have had pride of place. Instead he would have to settle for hanging it next to his still drying laundry, which was currently dripping on his bunk.

If his financial machinations continued working as intended, Peepers would soon have his Wall of Honor But, for now, his tighty whities would have to move over and share.

He sighed, barrel chest expanding contentedly as he watched out of the corner of his one remaining good eye as Sylvia shot out of a particularly narrow section of ductwork like the cork from a poteen jug under pressure. He'd installed that section of star-steel alloy pipe himself, before greasing it to perfection.

Peepers, control freak all the way, liked keeping things personal.


	13. Chapter 9: Wild Goose Chase

Riiiiiiippppppp! ("OW, grobnits!")

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Sylvia heaved herself forward through the narrowed section of duct, her favorite (and only pair of) cargo shorts was now badly torn across the butt where her tail hung out on what felt like a a protruding rivet.

Was it her imagination, or did this squeezy-squeezy section feel familiar?

Come to think of it, this whole network of pipes was beginning to feel awfully familiar, squeezy-squeezy bits and all.

Like she was going in circles...

Hmmmmmm…

Nahhhhh, who the flarbnabbits would do something that dumb?

Anyway, the gravity felt off, even in this cramped space.


	14. Chapter 10: Heh Heh Heh

"Aaaaaaaagh!" (Thud.)

Peepers glanced at the time-readout projected inside his breathing mask.

"Right on schedule."

Hater, as predicted, not being able to rip Emperor Awesome apart (that was against the rules), had taken his short fuse out on Peepers by hurling him by the ankles against the red velvet wall of Smooching Room #4/Conference Room #4.

Only it wasn't Peepers who'd taken that short, sudden flight, but Ted.

(As far as Hater was concerned, anybody wearing the flared Commander's helmet that Peepers wore, was Peepers. So what if Ted was a head taller than Peepers?)

It was a good thing that Peepers had budgeted for a spare command helmet.

(You never knew when you needed someone else to take a fall for you, especially when you worked for a truculent fool with little or no impulse control.)

Pausing at an internal airlock at the end of a very, very long corridor that Hater had no idea even existed, Peepers ran his long, rough tongue along the jagged edges of his double set of teeth in slow anticipation, glancing upwards.

Sylvia should be about ready to come out of the dummy set of ducts he'd installed just in case she and Wander ever decided to sneak aboard Hater's skullship and try something.

Chuckling at the sound of a woman with large hips, a broad-based tail, and a one-track mind forcing her way through a greased pipe that deliberately narrowed halfway through, Peepers pulled off his right glove and placed his three fingered hand on the biometric plate beside the hatch, which opened, releasing the sweet, sweet misty stench of AerLand #13 as he stepped in, savoring the release of the deliberately lightened artificial gravity of almost home as the hatch slid shut behind him, the click of the locks sliding home echoing behind him.


	15. Chapter 11: Escher

Every species has memories that are so old that they don't remember them.

But still they manifest, unremembered yet remembered – and what Commander Peepers stood amidst on the other side of the hatchway was one of those memories made solid.

And he had made it, created it, himself.

Without ever knowing where it came from.

While designing the uniforms he and the rest of the Watchdogs wore, all the way down to the red boots and gauntlets, piece by piece by piece as slowly he untangled Lord Hater's finances, Peepers had built his people a world, piece by piece by piece, where they could be breathe easy.

As a long forgotten artist named M.C. Escher had designed fantasy castles in the sky, on the seashore, upon the mountains and open plains, Peepers duplicated the bizarre but familiar terrain of an asteroid made of a chunk of extinct space-growing coral, where up was down and down was up, and let's not even begin to discuss sideways-back-and-forth.

For a people whose genetics had adapted them to such a place out of necessity, low gravity meant that you could walk upright on an upside-down staircase even as someone else walked upside down on the other side unperturbed…

…as a third person walks past in the sweltering oxygen deprived air carrying a basket of laundry at right angles to both of you without so much as losing a single sock, the naturally sticky surface of their feet keeping them from drifting out into open space as they pad barefoot across the rough, lichenous surface….

…and let's not even go into further detail about the others sitting cross-legged rolling dice in mid-air upside down while eating what might be soup…

…or the barefaces training on that flat area over there – mid-air combat is not for the easily nauseated…

…stalking through his work on a spiraling horizontal walkway, Peepers passed a cowering new recruit, helmet under his arm without even noticing that the youth was standing on the ceiling, or what would have been the ceiling in Lord Hater's portion of the skullship, feeling unaccountably lonely when he should have been all but cackling because he had Sylvia exactly where he wanted her.

Feet itchy, and with Lord Hater nowhere to be seen, Peepers knelt to remove his boots.

There was a loud "thud".

Dropping his boots, Peepers rose, staring more or less "up" in the space that a year or so before had been crammed top to bottom with what had been Lord Hater's trash. (He had what become the Watchdogs scour the place clean, as well as the rest of the ship, which had been ankle deep in empty beverage containers and dirty socks. The revenue gained from selling the trash as salvage had paid for the initial cost of a bulk-lot of breathing masks.)

And then another "thud".

(Followed by swearing. A LOT of swearing.)

Peepers grinned behind his breathing mask; loneliness forgotten.

He reached into one of his hip pockets, pulled out a small, flat square, and pushed the single red button decorating its slick black surface.

Seconds later Sylvia Zbornak fell swearing out of what had once been the ceiling, lip gloss smeared and covered in grease.

Cussing, Sylvia landed face-down behind Peepers in a slow-motion rising cloud of lichen fragments.

The off-duty Watchdogs, laundry and low gee combat practice forgotten, applauded.


	16. Chapter 12: Boo

Sylvia'd been in and out of Hater's skullship for at least two galactic years for one reason or another and had no idea this place existed – where the flarbnabbits was...was she even _on_ the skullship?

And the applause, where was it coming from?

Leaning back on her elbows, Sylvia angled her short, powerful arms beneath her, shifting her tail so that she'd flip upright...

...only, squinting downwards in the stifling swirls of hot mist, somebody was in her way, looming over her

Who the… unaccountably nervous, Sylvia scooted away, the rough, old-dish sponge-smelling surface rough on her elbows, blue boots kicking up more chunks of slowly bobbing whatever-it-was in her wake.

This wasn't the gravity of Hater's Skullship, gravity which left Sylvia feeling twice as strong as everybody around her thanks to having been raised on a heavy gravity mining world. Taking a chance on the stranger, she pushed herself upright, only her muscles overreacted, sending her stumbling halfway up the surface that curved unevenly behind her

The applause became laughter, laughter from all angles as whoever it was standing over her, turned around.

...and slowly took off his flared helmet.

Peepers? What the… what was the runt with the annoying hamster squeal of a voice doing in this disgusting place?

His single head-sized eyeball stared up at her unblinkingly as his three-finger one-thumbed hands, unaccountably bare, slowly rose and pulled the eye straight off his neck with a distinct "click" before tossing it aside so that it slowly spiraled out and away from them.

Sylvia gaped – what she'd seen this morning hadn't been her imagination. There was a face under that… whatever it was.

Peepers grinned, one sallow three-fingered hand absently running through the close-cropped dark thatch covering his narrow skull, the pale diffuse light filling this reeking place glinting off of the puckered mass of white scar tissue where his right eye had once been, the remaining large eye a startling blue.

Hot pink dreads limp in the damp heat, Sylvia backed up even further, though there wasn't much anywhere else she could go as he stared up at her, grin widening, exposing jagged double rows of teeth: this was a face which belonged in the back of a dark closet… under the bed… in the attic… in the basement behind the furnace…

Scar tissue glimmering, the pasty bluish true face of Commander Peepers, the absurd little creature that threw clipboards and temper tantrums, gaped wider, revealing a tongue too long to be normal for any human variant, only to snap shut like a trap.

Despite herself, Sylvia Zbornak whimpered, once more a six year old prone to nightmares...

The boogeyman was real.

The boogeyman was real.

The… boogeyman… was... real…

The boogeyman pushed off, rising gently so that he now drifted nose-to-nose with her—

"Boo."

...was all the Boogeyman said.


	17. Pointless Interruption: Fuzz

Meanwhile in Cell Block W...

(Yes, Wander has his own designated cell, it even has a guest bathroom with cute little soaps and embroidered towels because Sgt. Peepette, Peepers's only surviving female littermate from a litter of six, likes to keep her embroidery skills sharp in between marksbeing practice. She has yet to reveal herself to Lord Hater because she thinks he's a creep who smells like Doritos that have been stored in someone's armpit.)

(Come to think of it, Lord Hater _has_ met Peepette more than once, only as far as he's concerned, all Watchdogs look alike so why bother?)

(Though he did sort of wonder why Peepers had a decided hip-swing that day, but put it down to last Tuesday's visit by Rebel Tacos 's catering spacecraft causing Peeper's hemorrhoids to flare up.)

(Not that Peepers actually _had_ hemorrhoids, but Lord Hater's dad did, and as such, assumed that everybody including himself had them too.)

Embarassing personal problems in private parts aside, most of the Watchdogs aside from Peepers with his flared helmet DO look alike at first glance unless you know what to look for. (Why just last week, Kevin bought a bow tie off the Internet, a spiffy black one with little red lightning bolts on it, Kevin very badly wishes Sgt. Peepette would notice how extremely handsome he looks wearing it, because what's the point of spending your entire paycheck on a bow tie if nobody notices you wearing it? Maybe next paycheck he'll invest in the matching suspenders - the ones with little lightning bolts on the front - and the matching socks. Chicks dig matching socks.)

Aaaaaaanywayyyyyyyy— Peeper's sister, a few scratchily embroidered mauve guest towels plus little yellow soaps shaped like duckies that you don't dare use (Because that's for company!), and Kevin's attempt at serious sartorial seduction don't figure in this story at all.

No.

Not. At. All.

Wander, bored and a wee bit hurt at having been forgotten the second Emperor Awesome and his Party Patrol landed on the lower jaw of Hater's skullship to brag about something or other, casually pulled one five-fingered hand and then the other out of the starsteel shackles that he'd been hanging from for the last five hours or so, and landed in a cloud of loose orange fuzz on the polished starsteel floor below. Retrieving his banjo while adjusting the Hat he wore, Wander casually walked between the starsteel bars of Cellblock W, and with a jangle of strings, pattered off in a trail of orange fuzz pursued by a moth or six in his little green sneakers towards Lord Hater's personal quarters in search of a nice slice of triple pickle pie and a big glass of sugar water to wash it down with.

With ice.

Ice would be nice.

That, plus some unintended chaos.

Heyyyyyyy, was that a party he heard upstairs?

(Not to mention the one downstairs!)

After all, it never hurts to help!


	18. Chapter 13: Boogeyman

Sylvia _felt_ rather than _saw_ Peeper's bony little fist as it moved unbelievably fast towards her nose.

"Heh," she thought, "The Boogyman finally climbed out from under the bed and waaaaaaaaants to killllllll meeeeeee…" only the thought felt like it was moving through cold molasses through the foul smelling thin air of this…

…this…

….this…

What was she thinking about, again?

The Boogyman's fist loomed larger and larger in her vision. She squinted – the Boogeyman chewed his nails.

She could tell this because they were jagged down to the quick – and why did he have hair on the palms of his…

…what were…they? They…were.. fighting, right?

She… and… the Boogeyman… the little guy with the… the… theeeeeeee… fun…ny…teeeeeethhhhhh,

Crack!

The Boogeyman's fist connected squarely with Sylvia's nose and she watched idly as rounded droplets of her now purplish blue blood erupted in slow motion between them as he scrambled up her body… she was six years old again and… and… and… the thing that lurked beneath her… her…, what was it again? Bed? Bed-thingy?

…had come out toooooo…. Plaaaaayyyyyyyyy… and bloooooooddddddddd… was… wowwwwwww wereeeeeee…. Hissssss teeeeeeethhhhhh werrrrrrrreeee weirrrrrrd-d-d-d-d…

The pain registered as Sylvia flew backward down a spiral ramp, the Boogeyman working her over, laughing with every blow, ears roaring, brain…. melting…

_Stop it._

_You aren't six, grobnabbi!_

_You're a grown woman! This isn't the Boogeyman._

_It's Peepers._

_Remember Peepers? _

_The little arbobnob you punt out of your way in battle?_

Someone whispered in her ears; that someone was herself and herself was royally pissed off – "Do something about this!"

Sylvia raised one dark two-fingered hand with it's now dark purple nails and stared at it as Peepers scrambled up and down her body, punching and kicking as he went – the sound of someone banging on a drum deafening.

The Duchess.

She raised the other, ignoring Peepers, staring at it in turn as hypoxia dimmed her vision – Lady.

Yeah, Lady. Lady Haymaker.

Sylvia focused on first one fist and then the other, aiming them in equal slow-motion towards Peeper's face as he blurred up her body, her body which was drifting out into open space, pink palms and fingernails now dark blue, struggling to breathe in the thin air that didn't seem to faze Peepers – connecting first one and then the other with his piranha's mouth, sending him cartwheeling slowly into open mist, blood droplets an exploding trail of bluish red behind him… can't breathe, move too fast and can't breathe… how does he do it – who are all these guys? She thought as she bounced slowly off of the bottom of a stairway where dozens of faces that looked like Peeper's cheered down at her…

As for Peepers, he hadn't taken hypoxia into account when he'd lured Sylvia into a battlefield where for once he'd have the advantage.

Which took the fun out of… _everything._


	19. Chapter 14: The Boot

This wasn't how it was supposed to be!

This wasn't in the plan.

Peepers knew this wasn't in the plan because he'd planned it – months in advance, he'd diagrammed out the false ductwork down to the tiniest rivet, he'd even arranged where Sylvia'd fall and how the battle would go and now all his hard work in addition to babysitting Lord Hater and teaching the Watchdogs how to eat sandwiches and planning the next invasion.

"NO! NO! NO! NO!" Peepers raged

She'd turned purple and wasn't breathing when she was supposed to be beating the living fewmits out of him. Or him out of her – everything was ruined! (Were he wearing his helmet, Peepers would have hurled it to the deck before kicking it hurtling out the nearest airlock. Instead, he settled for clenching his fists and screaming in frustration at everything and nothing as he crouched on the now unconscious Sylvia's chest.)

"NO! NO! NO! NO!"

There was supposed to be an honor battle on front of the other Watchdogs so that for once they'd stop sniggering at him behind his back – no more tacks on his office chair, no more laxative in his office water cooler, no more ink in his showerhead… with Sylvia, there'd be be a truce and a reconciliation and a…

"NO! NO! NO! NO—" Peepers stopped mid-rage as somebody grabbed him by the scruff of the neck before booting him into a spinning arc away from Sylvia to the loud jeers of the watching Watchdogs.

"You _idiot!"_ his only living sister, Peepette, snarled, "Next time yeh plan a date, first be sure she can breathe our atmosphere!" as she slapped a breathing mask over Sylvia's face in a scattering of loose bobby pins and hair rollers

Sylvia's color immediately improved giving out a body shaking "Whoooooop!" as the restoratives mingled in with the O2 kicked in.

"But, but, but, this isn't a—" Peepers sputtered, "D-d-d-d-d-d-d… DATE?" (Well, maybe, just MAYBE, it was...)

Peepette, the only AerLishwoman who'd enlisted at his urging (the others had taken one look at the trashed skullship and collectively said, "No, why should we have to clean up Lord Hater's mess when we've plenty of mess here?" and "Yeah, we'd tidy that bum's mess all right, while yon lads all sit on they skinny butts and watch – you don't like rich lad's mess? You clean it up!) grabbed her sibling by the collar of the deeply discounted black little girl's dance leotards they all wore as a part of their official uniform until they could afford proper high tech body suits, adding, "For some lad what has a fantasy of being dominated by a great big muscular woman three times yeh size, yehs sure blew it this time! Now take it into the hall y'two, I can't curl me hair with the two of yehs going at it like a flock of randy sheep during t'breedin' season when a chicken interrupts!"

"BuuuUUUUttttTTTTtt siiiiiiiiiissss…"

"Oh, shut up, and take yeh girlfriend with yehs!"

Peepette slapped the sensor beside the door before booting both Sylvia and Peepers out into the long, echoing corridor, screaming," And don't yehs dare come back in here until yehs've got it out of yeh system!"

The door slid shut with more vigor than necessary behind them. Now it was Peeper's turn to turn funny colors while holding _his_ breath to avoid Oxy poisoning.

Seconds later the door to the AerLish section of the skullship slid open just enough for someone to toss his breathing helmet through to the whine of, "How come the RUNT gets a GIRLFRIEND and not US?"

The whine sounded like Ted.

He'd deal with Ted later. Peepers bent, snatching up the breathing helmet and jamming it over his head as Sylvia with a muffled roar through her own mask, grabbed him 'round the ankles from behind. Howling, she spun Peepers 'round her head like her belt whip just before going into battle.


	20. Chapter 15: Clickbait

As far as Andy was concerned, it was "business as usual".

"Business as usual" was bad.

As in really bad.

This was because bad involved boredom.

And boredom killed views.

Andy had three dedicated fans.

But no new content.

And if he didn't have content, interesting content, Andy's video blog would lose those three dedicated, subscribed fans, making it harder for him to earn 300,000 subscribed fans by a daunting 299,997.

Which made it harder for him to quit the Watchdogs and go full time.

Andy studied the array of surveillance screens that displayed every known inch of the skullship and sighed, dreams of early retirement dwindling. Aside from Kevin getting hurled across Smooching Room #4/Conference Room #4 (Ho hum.) by Lord Hater, there wasn't all that much going on any part of the skullship aside from the usual massive argument between Lord Hater and Emperor Awesome just on the verge of blows – reruns were a buzzkill.

Buzzkill meant audience comments weren't coming in _at all._ Then Andy, perched in a child's booster seat so he could see over the edge of the console, noticed something going on in screen #20 down near the bottom of the ship.

A fight that didn't involve Lord Hater and his cousin, Emperor Awesome.

Andy emitted a high pitched chuckle. Now _THAT_ was interesting.

"Interesting" meant subscribers and an early retirement.

But who was it?

Lord Hater's only full-time communications and surveillance officer zoomed in.

It was the boss (He'd know that fussy, bitchy stance anywhere, breathing mask or no breathing mask), and that big galumphing what's-its… What was her name? Sylvia?

The boss and Sylvia were having a rumpus.

And it was interesting.

Cackling in triumph, Andy happily switched all available surveillance units to the fight, including the drone shaped like an eggplant– broadcasting Peeper's and Sylvia's knock-down drag-out clickbait not only internally, but in a galaxy-wide blitz.

***

"Yo, ma! Syl's on teevee!" Rumbled Bill, one of Sylvia's hard to tell apart muscle-headed brothers from the couch. "She's really whalin' on dat liddle guy - I didn't know she was in the GWF!" (Galaxy Wrestling Federation.)

"What's she doin' now?" Sylvia's mother, Dorothy, wiped her hands on her apron as she walked out of the tiny kitchen. She squinted at the poor-quality image on the dying entertainment unit's tiny screen. "Fighting?" Her hand rose to her neat blue 'fro, automatically patting it back into shape.

"Dunno!" said Phil, Sylvia's middle brother mid-deadlift, "But she better be getting' paid for it – rent's overdue on dis dump!"

"Shaddup!" yelled Syl's youngest brother Gil (but it might have been Bill), "We's only two weeks behind dis time, 'cause one of yous used the rent money to buy a pizza and youse didn't share it wit' me!"

"Why you—" And like always, a punch was thrown, and another, and another, and another until the ancient teevee was knocked off the teevee tray and onto the floor with a bang and a puff of unheeded blue sparks and smoke.

"Sylvia? In a porno? Ha! Typical!" scoffed Gran from her huddled perch on the end of the battered couch amidst the latest family brawl, "Keep her away from my purse, she steals!" She said to nobody in particular.

***

"…and I say I lead the charge because I'm the awesomist! Look at this gun show!" Flexing, Emperor Awesome's gill slits flared blood red in the wreckage of Conference Room #4, aka Smooching Room #4. Somewhere above them, Kevin struggled to release himself from where the lightning blade mounted in his borrowed helmet had embedded itself in the chamber's ceiling after Lord Hater hurling him at random. He'd forgotten to leave the chinstrap unbuckled so that he now dangled like a frog slated for vivisection in the hands of a High School science teacher.

"Awesome. Awesome? Who cares about Awesome?" Hater rumbled, the highly visible veins in his transparent flesh bulging. The air around him began to crackle, "I lead the charge because I own the biggest ship!"

This fell on deaf ears because Emperor Awesome was gaping past his shoulder at the big screen mounted on the wall over the hot pink massage couch, "Get your filthy little paws off of my girlfriend!"

"Girlfri— _girlfriend?"_ Bertha squealed indignantly from under the coffee table where she'd taken refuge from flying bodies, "You told ME _I_ was your girlfriend!"

"Hey!" shrieked another member of Awesome's entourage from behind the couch. She rose in a swirl of dust bunnies, angrily advancing on the entranced Awesome on wobbly stilettoes, "I thought we was engaged!"

"Now just wait a flabbijabit second, Awesome, I'm your WIFE!" screeched a blonde who was bigger in the front than both of them combined. She thrust out a hand with a huge diamond ring on it, a large diamond ring with a green stain spreading from it "And it's LEEEEEEEEEEE-GALLLLLLL!"

"You told me I was your one and only and that the girls were just for show!" mumbled a Fist Fighter, thumb turning bright pink.

"Over here, chum breath!" snarled Lord Hater, "I'm the one you're fighting with!" Only nobody heard him as the tidal wave of jilted lovers converged on them both, pulling them under as Sylvia and Peepers duked it out on the screen above them.

A few seconds later Lord Hater erupted from the melee in a blast of raw electricity, Fist Fighters, Watchdogs, and was that a flaming bra that just shot past in a trail of smoke?

Fists giving off blue sparks, Hater bellowed, "Peepers? Is that you? You're supposed to be at this meeting and you're not! I'll KILLLLLLLLL you!" as in a rain of combatants, he stormed out of the room heading for Corridor #52, leading a trail of ozone and battered, angry combatants.

After a while, Wander pattered along in their wake, happily nibbling the dusty slice of triple pickle pie he'd found unharmed behind the hot pink massage couch.

What a party!


	21. Chapter 16: Zap

Managing Lord Hater was like trying to steer an EF5 tornado through an irreplaceable historic district armed only with a squirt bottle and a rolled-up newspaper – things might be going smoothly, but you never know when things will get out of hand.

Speaking of things getting out of hand, Peepers had forgotten his metaphorical rolled up newspaper and the squirty squirt, being too busy ducking Sylvia's left and then her right even as he fought to keep his balance in the medium gravity his employer required, natural velcro feet clinging to the corridor wall as he awkwardly dodged another punch, one that nearly knocked off his breathing helmet.

Peepers scuttled backwards and upwards on all fours like a rock-roach as his bigger opponent took another swing which slammed into the side of his mask, making his right ear buzz.

Steadying himself on the utility light overhead, Peepers screeched, "Gotta be faster, Big Girl, gotta be faster!"

Bellowing obscenities she'd learned from Ryder her previous boss, Sylvia used her tail to flip herself upwards, coming at him with big feet in even bigger boots so fast that Peepers didn't see them coming until he felt himself cartwheeling end over end before to an abrupt halt atop Lord Hater.

Minus any items of distraction.

"PeeeeeeeeePERSSSSSSSSS!" His appallingly rubber gloveless boss rasped while struggling to his feet from under the writhing heap of toppled Fist Fighters, jilted lovers, Watchdogs, and the Emperor Awesome.

The fewmits had hit the fan, and Peepers was the biggest fewmet in the corridor– a fewmet about to be fried to a crisp.

Peepers frantically struggled up the nearest corridor wall befor jerking to a halt: Hater had grabbed him by the ankles and was getting ready to hammer-throw him to the jagged fandango of a biologically generated lightning blast.

All too visible veins throbbing in his skull-like face, Hater, going from easily distracted moron to dangerously focused moron, screamed, "Traitor! You weren't there to be clever for me with Awesome. You made me look stoooooopid!"

"This is for messing with my girlfriend!" Bawled Emperor Awesome, all flexing forgotten as he clamped down on the tiny man's wrists, savagely yanking Peepers backwards so that he felt his spine pop vertebrae by vertebrae. All the hair on Peeper's body rose as Hater, reeking of ozone, screamed "Mine! Mine!" Blue sparks began shooting from the edges of his robes.

At this, assorted belligerent beings stopped beating one each other with their shoes, purses, and an antique ritual potato masher and with a collective bleat ran for cover: something seriously big and bad was about to go down to the tune of 10,000 biologically generated milliamps.

Having taken more than his fair share of petulant shocks before discovering the health benefits of bulk purchased rubber kitchen gloves, Peepers steeled himself, knowing this time he wouldn't survive –at least that hirbitty blurbbity Emperor Awesome was gonna shuffle with him off this mortal coil where he couldn't use Peeper's helmeted head as an ashtray during peace talks—

"YOU CAN HAVE HIM WHEN I'M DONE WITH HIM!" Sylvia hollered, snatching Peepers from both. Tucking him beneath one short, powerful arm like a football, she took off at a dead run towards the only ladies room on the entire ship, burst through the padded swinging door and shoved Peepers into the entrance of the maze he'd built to trap her before squeezing in after him.

Ka-POW!

The shock rippled through fake array of ductwork as not far behind, Lord Hater finally lost his cool while Andy's latest vlog entry received standing ovations all over the galaxy.


End file.
